My own methods:

When I’m working in PhotoShop, my left hand is holding a Wacom pen, the keybopard is at a 45° angle, over to the right, and the thumb of my right hand rests near the [Command] Key. This also keeps it immediately adjacent to the other modifier keys: [Option], [Control] and [Shift]. My “rested” state is always in the Marquee tool.

[M] – calls up the Marquee (selection) tool.

There are several reasons to work with the marquee tool selected, not just for making selections. When in the marquee tool, the [Space Bar] toggles to the “Hand” tool, the [Command] Key toggles to the arrow “Move” tool. [Command]+[Option] toggles to ‘drag a duplicate layer.’ [Space Bar]+[Command] toggles to the zoom-in tool [Space Bar]+[Command]+[Option] toggles to the zoom-out tool. You get to all of these tools from the Marquee tool, and when you release, it remains in the Marquee tool.

The other big advantage to always pulling up the Marquee tool the second you finish your business at hand, is that you cannot screw anything up from the Marquee tool. If you keep your toolbox set to most other tools, and accidentally click or simply bump your pen/mouse, you can end up with a blemish or accident.

Another extremely useful shortcut is [Command]+[Return] which deselects out of any text block.

Other shortcuts I use frequestly:

[Command]+[M] brings up Curves
[Command]+[U] brings up Hue/Saturation
[Command]+[B] brings up Color Balance
[Command]+[L] brings up Color Levels

[P] calls the Pen tool
[T] calls the Type tool
[I] calls the Eye-Dropper tool
[B] calls the Brush tool

Also, when you’re in the “Brush” tool, holding down [Option] toggles the “Eye-Dropper”

[Shift]+[F5] brings up the “Fill” dialog box

[Command]+[Option]+[I] brings up the “Image Size/Resize” dialog box

[Tab] to hide all floating palettes

[Command]+[;] toggles your guides on and off
[Command]+['] toggles your grid on and off

[Command]+[-] & [Command]+[+] Zooms in and Out

[Command]+[J] duplicates the current selection OR layer if nothing is selected
[Command]+[Shift]+[C] Copy Merged (copies all layers)

[Command]+[G] groups selected layers
[Command]+[E] merges selected layers

[Command]+[Delete] fills with background color
[Command]+[Option]+[Delete] fills with White

I also write a lot of actions and assign them to ["modifier key"]+["F key"] quick keys, so I can combine several common tasks into a single key-stroke.

———-

I guess we could also include the obvious ones that are standard in all applications, but are probably used more than any of the above (I’m astounded when I see people select “Copy” or “Paste” or “Print” from a pull-down menu). I assume everyone who has used a computer longer than a year knows these:

[Command]+[Z] Undo
[Command]+[X] Cut
[Command]+[C] Copy
[Command]+[V] Paste

[Command]+[A] Select All
[Command]+[D] Deselect

[Command]+[S] Save
[Command]+[P] Print
[Command]+[O] Open
[Command]+[W] Close Window
[Command]+[Q] Quit

[Return] key selects the default button for whatever dialog box is open (usually “OK”).
[Command]+[ . ] is Cancel
In the “Save” dialog box, [Command]+[D] is Don’t Save.

———-

That’s what I’ve got.

cheers,
Chris

I taught myself Photoshop with Adobe’s Classroom in a Book. Photography is only a hobby for me. I primarily use it to create collages and for color correcting/cropping, etc. I needed something that would teach me more than the basics, but didn’t need to get into web development or the really advanced stuff. I have CS4 (I believe the CS stands for Creative Suite…but I only have Photoshop CS4, not the entire suite, so I’m not sure why they still call it that, other than the fact that it is part of the Creative Suite if you purchase all of it).

I believe there is a Classroom in a Book for Photoshop Elements. These books give you a CD of lessons consisting of several photographs in various stages of development. They include a photo that shows what the finished product looks like, as well as the photos needed to start a project and to add to that project. When you open a photo, it may come complete with the layers needed to get to that point. The book itself has you go through various steps on the photos supplied in the lessons, so that you can learn different features. I thought I could skip some chapters, because they didn’t apply to my needs, but it turns out that they might slip in some really useful advice/technique/shortcut while learning to do something you might not really use. For example, in an early chapter, they may use the menu to save your work, in another they may use the shortcut to show you there are many ways to achieve the same result.

I discovered these books because of my daughter. When she attended collage, the course she was taking required her to learn Photoshop and Illustrator using these books. The instructor gave the assignments and did the critiquing, but didn’t actually teach how to use the programs. She learned that by doing the lessons in the book, and then applying them to her own work.

Once I get a working knowledge about a certain technique, but still need to refer to the book to remember “how did they do that?”, I find going to the tutorials that are available on the internet are fantastic. At that point, I may do a search for a particular tool, or technique.

By the Way, when I picked up my copy of Photoshop CS4 I couldn’t find it at first. They did a search at Barnes and Nobel and found they had 5 copies, somewhere. It turned out they were at the front desk. People try to rip off the CD that is attached inside the book. This is so ridiculous, the CD just has the photos used for the lessons; without the book, it is worthless.

Control S to Save
Control Z to Undo
Control D to deselect Selection

While I use many others, these are used with just about every project I work on.

http://genuinetechmarks.blogspot.com/2009/03/550-keyboard-shortcuts-for-adobe.html